Witnesses say Boko Haram militants abducted more victims in the past week in Northern Nigeria, including 60 girls and women, and more than 30 boys, but Nigerian authorities have not confirmed the reports, according to the NewYorkTimes.

News reports of more kidnappings revived concern about hundreds of
schoolgirls kidnapped in the same region in April who have yet to be rescued.

Witnesses said that 60 girls and women, and more than 30 boys, were abducted Saturday in the village of Kummabza, about 100 miles from Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State.

Nigerian authorities were heavily criticized in April for delaying to report on the abductions of hundreds of schoolgirls. They have yet to confirm last week’s reported abductions. Witnesses said militants from the Boko Haram group, which took responsibility for
the abductions in April, carried out last week’s kidnapping after attacking villages.

Boko Haram attempted to trade hostages in return for its members detained by security forces. The Islamist group has made regular attacks, despite a military state of emergency in the region, NYTimes reports.

At least eight people were killed and 20 wounded Monday in an explosion on a college campus in Kano, Northern Nigeria. It was not immediately known whether the attack was part of Boko Haram’s campaign to promote an Islamic state, according to NYTimes.

Earlier in June, Boko Haram killed dozens of people — possibly hundreds –according to the Nigerian news media in what local officials described as a massacre in Northeastern Nigeria along the border with Cameroon, which has deployed thousands of troops as part of a regional campaign against the group.

The radical group that abducted more than 200 girls from a Northern Nigerian village in April, has steadily increased the brutality and frequency of its attacks since it was formed in 2002.

“Unlike al-Qaida, Boko Haram’s goals are purely local. They want to overthrow Nigeria’s government and establish an Islamic caliphate in its place,” according to a NewYorkTimes video. Parents of some of girls abducted in April said on the video that the Nigerian government failed to inform the public of Boko Haram’s activities and failed to act in rescuing the girls.